Be-Ware the Art Attack!

from the NYTimes:

'N.Y. Times Magazine' Debuting Comics in September

By E&P Staff

Published: September 06, 2005 12:26 PM ET

CHICAGO The Good Gray Lady has got the giggles.

One hundred and ten years after “The Yellow Kid” made its first appearance in the old New York World, The New York Times is publishing its first comic strip.

The Times announced Tuesday that it is turning over 10 pages of The New York Times magazine to a new section called “The Funny Pages.”

Each Sunday beginning Sept. 18, the magazine will run "The Strip," a serialized, full-color and full-page comic strip that will feature one self-contained story. The strips will be created by what the Times announcement calls “stars of the graphic novel,” with each running about six months. The first strip will be by alternative newspaper star Chris Ware, author of the graphic novel, "Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth." His first Times strip “tells the story of a young girl and her adventures in her apartment house,” the magazine said.

The new section will also include the Times Magazine's first foray into fiction with “The Sunday Serial.” The 14-week installments of an original work will kick off with a story by Elmore Leonard, best-selling author of "Get Shorty" and other novels. His serial will be followed by one from Patricia Cornwell.

A new column, "True Life Tales," will feature pieces of “the best young humor writers who tell hilariously true stories about everyday family life and societal trends.”

Times Magazine Editor Gerald Marzorati said the section is intended to give “our youngest readers a go-to destination when the paper arrives.”

"The Funny Pages is our own take on the traditional Sunday paper funny pages," he said in a statement. "We wanted a place in our pages for genre fiction--mysteries, detective stories, and the like--which is having a particularly vibrant moment in popular culture just now. And we wanted to make a place for the work of those creating narrative comics and graphic novels, a great new art form.”

"The Funny Pages" will also be available on NYTimes.com.